“David Haaris.”
To her credit the secretary hesitated only for a beat. “One moment, Mr. Haaris.”
Boyle came on almost instantaneously. “David, I’m surprised to hear from you. You’re here in London again?”
“At the Connaught. Wonder if we could have dinner tonight? We have a lot to catch up on.”
“We certainly do.”
“First off, I need to apologize for the little fiction with Ron Pembroke. I hope you weren’t too difficult on him. He’s an out-of-work actor.”
“I can come over there now.”
“I’ll meet you in the bar at six,” Haaris said. “Dinner at seven. And, Tom, hold off calling Langley. I expect by now that Marty is beside himself.”
“Can’t promise that. But I’ll meet you at six.”
“Good enough,” Haaris said.
He hung up and went into the bathroom, where he threw up in the toilet, the champagne still cool at the back of his throat. For a long time he sat on the floor, his cheek against the porcelain of the bowl, his head spinning, pain raging through his body from the base of his skull all the way to his backbone and his legs.
“Holding it together is going to become a matter of pain management,” Franklin had told him at All Saints. “If you take something for it, you’ll not be in agony.”
Haaris had smiled faintly. “Nor will my head work properly.”
“Only you can decide the balance.”
Haaris got up, splashed some cold water on his face and got dressed in highly starched jeans and a white shirt with a button-down collar, plus the British-tailored black blazer. They were the last of his decent Western clothes until he could get back home.
He got his gold watch, cell phone, wallet and other belongings and poured another glass of Krug.
“Alcohol won’t do it either,” Franklin had warned. “In fact, in a month or so it’ll actually make things worse.”
Haaris had managed to smile. “There’s always pot.”
Franklin had returned the smile. “That’ll work, for a while.”
But for now good wine was the more civilized of his limited options.
Tommy Boyle, tall, thin, lots of angles to his features, walked into the bar at precisely six o’clock. He had been assistant deputy director of operations at Langley when Haaris had first started working for the Company. It was he who’d helped start up the Pakistan Desk. And it was he who’d been best man at Haaris’s wedding.
Haaris half rose to greet him and they shook hands.
“How’d Marty take it?”
“Not well,” Boyle said. The waiter came and he ordered a martini. “You?”
Haaris held up his champagne glass. He was on his second bottle of Krug, but it was having no effect on him yet.
“Have you been paying attention to the situation in Pakistan?” Boyle asked.
“I’ve taken a look at CNN and Al Jazeera.”
“Where the hell were you? What were you up to?”
“Paris for a day or two, and then Istanbul,” Haaris said. “Interesting city.”
“Doing what?”
“Getting past Deborah.”
Boyle looked away for a moment. “I’m truly sorry about her. Last I heard the police were still looking for her murderer.” He shook his head. “Why the imposter?”
“I wanted a few days on my own. If I had stayed here, you know and I know that I would have been recalled to Langley to help straighten out the mess the White House, State Department and Pentagon created. But it was too late. Nothing I could have done, then or now.”
Boyle’s drink came and he knocked back half of it before the waiter left.
“Another, sir?”
“No,” Boyle said, and when the man was gone he shook his head again. “What’s your take on the Messiah?”
“I told them that it would be absolutely necessary for someone like him to show up, religious plus secular; but I also warned them that at the very least he would be unpredictable and probably impossible to control.”
“Any idea who he is?”
“He was born in Pakistan — the Punjabi accent comes out even though he’s done something with his voice. It’s not natural. But I suspect that he was probably educated right here in England. You might have your people do a search at least for body types matching his.”
“We’re already on it. What else?”
“Have Rencke gear up one of his programs for a voice analysis. Might come up with a clue that could help.”
“I’m told he started that right after the Messiah’s first speech.”
“Barazani was a good man but totally ineffective, and from what I saw Rajput isn’t doing such a hot job as PM. I assume that he and Miller are talking.”
“He’s disappeared.”
“Who’s running the bloody country? The military?”
“For now. But everyone is waiting for the Messiah to show up again and tell them what to do.”
Haaris lowered his eyes for a second. This meeting was going almost exactly as he thought it would. All that was left was for Boyle to drop the other shoe. He looked up. “What aren’t you telling me, Tom?”
“I’ve been ordered to have a couple of my guys escort you back to Langley. Technically, you’re under arrest.”
“On what charge? Desertion of duty because my wife was murdered, and I’m told that I have terminal cancer?”
“Shit. They think that you are the Messiah.”
Haaris hid the smile of triumph by throwing his head back and laughing out loud, the effort combined with the champagne making his stomach roil all over again. “It’ll be good to get back to work.”
SIXTY-FIVE
The Gulfstream heading west was chasing the sun, and the assistant sec def’s aircraft landed in Germany at Ramstein for refueling well before dawn. On Pete’s insistence McGarvey had managed to catch a few hours’ rest, not waking until they took off.
Pete was sound asleep in the seat across the aisle from his, a blanket covering her. Fishbine and one of his assistants were deep in discussion in seats facing each other near the front of the cabin.
McGarvey got up, adjusted Pete’s blanket and went forward to the two men.
Fishbine looked up. He seemed pleased. “Good morning, Mr. Director, how are you feeling?”
“Fine. Thanks for the lift.”
Fishbine motioned for him to have a seat. The attendant, a young navy chief, came back with a coffee. “This might help,” he said. The coffee was laced with brandy.
“Outstanding,” McGarvey said. “Maybe you could rustle up a sandwich or something. I haven’t had much to eat in the past couple of days.”
“Eggs Benedict and hash browns in ten minutes, sir.”
“There’re some perks to the job,” Fishbine said. He motioned for his assistant, a navy lieutenant in ODUs, to leave them.
“I didn’t know that you were in Afghanistan,” McGarvey said.
“Wasn’t made public. I came over to take a closer look after our raids last week and to check if there’d been anything new on the nuclear incident outside Quetta. But I didn’t learn a damned thing. Wasted trip. Means just like you I’m heading home to a shit storm.”
“You were military liaison to the Company when I was DCI,” McGarvey said, suddenly remembering the name. “We’ve survived shit storms before.”
“Indeed,” the assistant sec def said. “Miss Boylan briefed me on something you went through. What’s your take on the situation?”
“I actually got to meet with the Messiah for just a few minutes. I was undercover as a journalist.”
“Good disguise, I would never have recognized you. Did you get anything from him?”